With the advent of more robust wireless communications systems, compatible handheld communication devices are becoming more prevalent, as well as advanced. In a broader sense, these devices are referred to as handheld electronic devices, which include devices without communication functions. Where in the past such handheld communication devices typically accommodated either voice (cell phones) or text transmission (pagers and PDAs), today's consumer often demands a combination device capable of performing both types of transmissions, including sending and receiving e-mail. The suppliers of such mobile communication devices and underlying service providers are anxious to meet these demands, but the combination of voice and textual messaging, as well as other functionalities such as those found in PDAs, have caused designers to have to improve the means by which information is input into the devices by the user, as well as provide better facilitation for the user to navigate within the menus and icon presentations necessary for efficient user interface with these more complicated devices.
For many reasons, screen icons are often utilized in such handheld communication devices as a way to allow users to make feature and/or function selections. Among other reasons, users are accustomed to such icon representations for function selection. A prime example is the personal computer “desktop” presented by Microsoft's Windows® operating system. Because of the penetration of such programs into the user markets, most electronics users are familiar with what has basically become a convention of icon-based functionality selections. Even with many icons presented on a personal computer's “desktop”, however, user navigation and selection among the different icons is easily accomplished utilizing a conventional mouse and employing the point-and-click methodology. The absence of such a mouse from these handheld wireless communication devices, however, has caused a different protocol to develop for icon navigation and selection.
As depicted in FIGS. 2-12d, the icons displayed on the screen of the device are typically presented in an array of uniform rows and columns. As an example, a home screen might present icons for telephone, e-mail, calendar and contact functions. Because there is no “mouse,” other auxiliary navigational tools are typically provided for user manipulation to affect movement between the different icons on a handheld device. Such navigational tools have included rotatable thumb wheels, joysticks, touchpads, four-way cursors and the like.
In many instances, the navigational tools require that a user scroll through the various icons and menu items displayed on the screen of the device in series or in a sequential manner. That is, in order to highlight a desired icon, or to move from one row of icons to another, a user must sequentially scroll through a number of undesired icons in order to arrive at a desired icon. This type of navigational operation is more clearly illustrated in FIGS. 2 and 3, which show a rotatable thumbwheel being used to scroll a cursor past a Memo Pad icon at the end of a first row in order to arrive at a Tasks icon on a second row. This type of navigational operation, wherein a linearly scrolled cursor is capable of being passed from a first row to a second row upon reaching a terminal end of the first row is known as “wrapping.” Accordingly, in the case where the display of a device comprises a large number of icons, it can take a significant amount of time and effort for a user to scroll to a desired icon. Additionally, if commonly used icons are not conveniently located for quick and efficient access using a thumbwheel, a user can be required to repetitively scroll through a number of icons to select a commonly used function. Accordingly, user frustration is likely to occur. Further, in the case of handheld devices comprising navigational tools that are particularly sensitive to user inputs, for example, trackballs, touchpads, joysticks, etc., users can tend to “overshoot” past a desired icon during navigation. If such handheld device is configured to wrap selectable text and/or user-actuable functions, such overshooting can result in navigation to a subsequent row or rows. This, too, can result in user frustration.
Accordingly, the instantly presented solutions focus on enabling a user to navigate a cursor on a screen of a handheld electronic device having a navigational tool whose actuation is not directionally limited, e.g., trackballs, touchpads, joysticks, etc., so as to prevent and/or minimize “overshooting” of a cursor past an icon. The instantly presented solutions also focus on selectively disposing commonly used icons, menu items and the like, about the screen of a handheld electronic device such that specific movements of the navigational tool result in quick and efficient cursor navigation. The instantly presented solutions further allow a navigation tool to be used to directly navigate among icons on a menu that are vertically and/or diagonally disposed relative to the other.